Hm. Well, yesterday was kind of a bust. I didn't get any more pages of Absinthe finished, and I let myself go to sleep the normal way. It was raining outside (still is) and the guys just looked so damn cute and cuddleable, curled up in bed with rain noises in the background.
I really need to get some kind of timing device for my naps; wrestling with the alarm clock is such a pain in the ass. I'd been using the stopwatch on my celofloam but I haven't bothered replacing it since I lost it last week. I didn't even exercise yesterday morning.
On the other hand I did get out and get a big pile of granola for breakfast, and I did make some progress on Absinthe - the scene-setting spread of p.22/23 is really just a couple of buildings away from completion, and the party on the top of p.25 is only missing four party-goers now. I'll be trying to cut out sleep again tonight; we'll see how it goes.
I haven't pushed well into sleep-deprivation territory since I was somewhere in my twenties; that's a whole other life, it seems. Liz and I were going to push into woozy no-sleep space for no other reason than to do it; we'd laid in several bottles of Coke to keep us going... and suddenly I got this pain in my side, which turned out to be my first experience of a kidney stone. That weekend ended up being spent moaning and waiting for it to pass instead of hanging out with a friend (and probably flirting or something); we never ended up scheduling another attempt. The only other time I've gone without sleep for more than 24 hours since then was the weekend at Spümcø that was the first step towards burning out on the animation industry - the Flash crew stayed up for two and a half days straight racing to make up for John keeping an episode in layout long past schedule, and he immediately launched into criticizing it when he got in on Monday morning, instead of thanking us for this amazing feat of pulling victory out of the jaws of defeat.
I would say that it's been so long since I last deprived myself of sleep that I've forgotten how, but that's a lie. My one main technique was copious quantities of caffeine, mostly Coke, and I've been off that stuff long enough that it'd make taking the regular naps pretty much impossible. All I have now is the public embarrassment of talking about it in LJ and then failing to do what I said I was gonna do.
One thing I did notice is that twice yesterday I kinda... didn't get up... when the alarm went off. I just kinda lounged in bed and ended up dozing for another hour or so. Not good for circadian rhythm retraining, and not all that good for feeling awake and refreshed after getting up, either.
Anyway, it's nine, and time for the first nap of the day. Tonight: no sleep.
